Fahnestock Chronicles Entry no. 3: In Which She Finds Out That She Does, After All, Like Being Busy

There were just three of us Seasonals (as we call ourselves) on today. The campground is still deserted except for some through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail, which means that it stays (fairly) clean. Usually, this time of year means that we sit in the office doing absolutely nothing until late June, and although that means I get a lot of reading done, it also means that I start to feel like my soul is sinking into this abyss of Nothingness. But today we had several tasks to complete. Three actually. It was like a fairy tale, where the heroes have to complete three tasks of increasing difficulty before earning the reward. Except in our case, the tasks weren't things like "spin all of the straw into gold," but "rake all of the mulch that is piled up outside the playground onto the playground" and the reward wasn't the hand of the princess but the ability to go home.

So our first task was the daily one: clean bathrooms. It was by far the easiest, because as I said earlier, no one camps this time of year. Our next was the aforementioned raking. This was slightly more difficult. The playground is small. Tiny, in fact. It's hard to really consider it a playground. But they ordered 200 feet of mulch, which, piled up outside of the playground probably reached higher than the slide. Even I, who can't back up a car, who tries to put circular containers inside square ones, and who constantly has bruises on my hips because I can't tell where my body ends and door frames begin realized that this was a little off. There was just far too much mulch for that little space. But we did our best, shoveling and raking until our hands hurt (and sides. I did enjoy knowing that I was getting a core workout, because I haven't been to the gym since last thursday) and the mulch was overlapping the slide and ladders. Yes, it still spilled over the sides. But no one will EVER get hurt on that playground now. Our third task was to paint the women's bathrooms at the beach. Although I haven't painted much, I discovered that I'm quite good at it. Painting works well with my perfectionism.

I realized that although I still haven't finished my book, I enjoy being busy far more than not. It makes the day go faster and I really feel like I do something at my job, instead of wasting my life. And I'm off tomorrow and friday! I'm going into the city overnight to see Sonia and Maddy and get dinner with my Firenze Friends. I'm so excited. Knowing that I'm going to the place that I really do consider my other home makes me so happy.

Also, I've totally been MIA over the past week. It takes a lot for me to want to leave the house after work. Usually I'm tired and numb and all I want to do is sleep. But force me to, please. I won't do it on my own.

And in other, totally unrelated news, everyone should run and listen to something written by Osvaldo Golijov. He's this Russian-Jewish-Mexican composer who writes glorious Latin music that even non-classical people would like. Listen to St. Marks Passion. It's life changing.